Absent in the Spring (18 page)

Averil who had seen through her at a very early age …

Averil who had been broken and hurt by life and who, even now perhaps, was still a maimed creature.

But a creature with courage …

That was what she, Joan, had lacked. Courage.

‘
Courage isn't everything,
' she had said.

And Rodney had said, ‘
Isn't it
? …'

Rodney had been right …

Tony, Averil, Rodney – all of them her accusers.

And Barbara?

What had been wrong with Barbara? Why had the doctor been so reticent? What was it they had all been hiding from her?

What had the child done – that passionate undisciplined child, who had married the first man who asked her so as to get away from home.

Yes, it was quite true – that was exactly what Barbara had done. She'd been unhappy at home. And she'd been unhappy because Joan hadn't taken the least trouble to make home happy for her.

She'd had no love for Barbara, no kind of understanding. Cheerfully and selfishly she had determined what was good for Barbara without the least regard for Barbara's tastes or wishes. She had had no welcome for Barbara's friends, had gently discouraged them. No wonder the idea of Baghdad had seemed to Barbara like a vista of escape.

She had married Bill Wray hastily and impulsively, and without (so Rodney said) loving him. And then what had happened?

A love affair? An unhappy love affair? That Major Reid, probably. Yes, that would explain the embarrassment when Joan had mentioned his name. Just the kind of man, she thought, to fascinate a silly child who wasn't yet properly grown up.

And then, in desperation, in one of those violent paroxysms of despair to which she had been prone from early childhood, those cataclysms when she lost all sense of proportion, she had tried – yes, that must be it – to take her own life.

And she had been very, very ill – dangerously ill.

Had Rodney known, Joan wondered? He had certainly tried to dissuade her from rushing out to Baghdad.

No, surely Rodney couldn't have known. He would have told her. Well, no, perhaps he wouldn't have told her. He certainly had done his best to stop her going.

But she had been absolutely determined. She had felt, she said, that she simply couldn't endure not to go out to the poor child.

Surely
that
had been a creditable impulse.

Only – wasn't even that a part, only, of the truth?

Hadn't she been attracted by the idea of the journey – the novelty – seeing a new part of the world? Hadn't she enjoyed the idea of playing the part of the devoted mother? Hadn't she seen herself as a charming, impulsive woman being welcomed by her ill daughter and her distracted son-in-law? How good of you, they would say, to come rushing out like that.

Really, of course, they hadn't been at all pleased to see her! They had been, quite frankly, dismayed. They had warned the doctor, guarded their tongues, done everything imaginable to prevent her from learning the truth. They didn't want her to know because they didn't trust her. Barbara hadn't trusted her. Keep it from Mother – that had probably been her one idea.

How relieved they had been when she had announced that she must go back. They had hidden it quite well, making polite protestations, suggesting that she might stay on for a while. But when she had just for a moment actually thought of doing so, how quick William had been to discourage her.

In fact, the only possible good that she had done by her hurried rush eastwards was the somewhat curious one of drawing Barbara and William together in their united effort to get rid of her and keep their secret. Odd if, after all, some positive good might come from her visit. Often, Joan remembered, Barbara, still weak, had looked appealingly at William, and William, responding, had hurried into speech, had explained some doubtful point, had fended off one of Joan's tactless questions.

And Barbara had looked at him gratefully – affectionately.

They had stood there on the platform, seeing her off. And Joan remembered how William had held Barbara's hand, and Barbara had leaned a little towards him.

‘Courage, darling,' that was what he had been meaning. ‘It's nearly over – she's going …'

And after the train had gone, they would go back to their bungalow at Alwyah and play with Mopsy – for they both loved Mopsy, that adorable baby who was such a ridiculous caricature of William – and Barbara would stay, ‘Thank goodness she's gone and we've got the house to ourselves.'

Poor William, who loved Barbara so much and who must have been so unhappy, and yet who had never faltered in his love and tenderness.

‘Don't worry about her!' Blanche had said. ‘She'll be all right. There's the kid and everything.'

Kind Blanche, reassuring an anxiety that simply hadn't existed.

All she, Joan, had had in her mind was a superior disdainful pity for her old friend.

I thank thee, Lord, that I am not as this woman
.

Yes, she had even dared to pray …

And now, at this moment, she would have given anything to have had Blanche with her!

Blanche, with her kindly, easy charity – her complete lack of condemnation of any living creature.

She had prayed that night at the railway rest house wrapped in that spurious mantle of superiority.

Could she pray now, when it seemed to her that she had no longer a rag to cover her?

Joan stumbled forward and fell on her knees.

…
God,
she prayed,
help me
 …

… I'm going mad, God …

… Don't let me go mad …

… Don't let me go on thinking …

Silence …

Silence and sunlight …

And the pounding of her own heart …

God
, she thought,
has forsaken me
 …

… God won't help me …

… I am alone – quite alone …

That terrible silence … that awful loneliness …

Little Joan Scudamore … silly, futile, pretentious little Joan Scudamore …

All alone in the desert
.

Christ
, she thought,
was alone in the desert
.

For forty days and forty nights …

… No, no, nobody could do that – nobody could bear it …

The silence, the sun, the loneliness …

Fear came upon her again – the fear of the vast empty spaces where man is alone except for God …

She stumbled to her feet.

She must get back to the rest house – back to the rest house.

The Indian – the Arab boy – the hens – the empty tins …

Humanity.

She stared round her wildly. There was no sign of the rest house – no sign of the tiny cairn that was the station – no sign, even, of distant hills.

She must have come farther than ever before, so far that all around her there was no discernible landmark.

She didn't, horror upon horror, even know in which direction the rest house lay …

The hills – surely those distant hills couldn't disappear – but all around on the horizon were low clouds … Hills? Clouds? One couldn't tell.

She was lost, completely lost …

No, if she went north – that was right – north.

The sun …

The sun was directly overhead … there was no way of telling her direction from the sun …

She was lost – lost – she would never find the way back …

Suddenly, frenziedly she began to run.

First in one direction, then, in sudden panic back the other way. She ran to and fro, wildly, desperately.

And she began to cry out – shouting, calling …

Help
 …

Help
 …

(They'll never hear me, she thought … I'm too far away … )

The desert caught up her voice, reduced it to a small bleating cry. Like a sheep, she thought, like a sheep …

He findeth his sheep …

The Lord is my Shepherd …

Rodney – green pastures and the valley in the High Street …

Rodney
, she called,
help me, help me …

But Rodney was going away up the platform, his shoulders squared, his head thrown back … enjoying the thought of a few weeks' freedom … feeling, for the moment, young again …

He couldn't hear her.

Averil – Averil – wouldn't Averil help her?

I'm your mother, Averil, I've always done everything for you …

No, Averil would go quietly out of the room, saying perhaps:

‘There isn't really anything I can do …'

Tony – Tony would help her.

No, Tony couldn't help her. He was in South Africa.

A long way away …

Barbara – Barbara was too ill … Barbara had got food poisoning.

Leslie, she thought. Leslie would help me if she could. But Leslie is dead. She suffered and she died …

It was no good – there was no one …

She began to run again – despairingly, without idea or direction – just running …

The sweat was running down her face, down her neck, down her whole body …

She thought, This is the end …

Christ,
she thought …
Christ
…

Christ would come to her in the desert …

Christ would show her the way to the green valley.

… Would lead her with the sheep …

… The lost sheep …

… The sinner that repented …

… Through the valley of the shadow …

… (No shadow – only sun …)

… Lead kindly light. (But the sun wasn't kindly … )

The green valley – the green valley – she must find the green valley …

Opening out of the High Street, there in the middle of Crayminster.

Opening out of the desert …

Forty days and forty nights
.

Only three days gone – so Christ would still be there.

Christ,
she prayed,
help me
 …

Christ …

What was that?

Over there – far to the right – that tiny blur upon the horizon!

It
was the rest house
… she wasn't lost … she was saved …

Saved
…

Her knees gave way – she crumpled down in a heap …

Joan regained consciousness slowly …

She felt very sick and ill …

And weak, weak as a child.

But she was saved. The rest house was there. Presently, when she felt a little better, she could get up and walk to it.

In the meantime she would just stay still and think things out. Think them out properly – not pretending any more.

God, after all, had not forsaken her …

She had no longer that terrible consciousness of being alone …

But I must think,
she said to herself.
I must think
. I must get things straight. That is why I'm here – to get things straight …

She had got to know, once and for all, just what kind of a woman Joan Scudamore was …

That was why she had had to come here, to the desert. This clear, terrible light would show her what she was. Would show her the truth of all the things she hadn't wanted to look at – the things that, really,
she had known all along
.

There had been one clue yesterday. Perhaps she had better start with that. For it had been then, hadn't it, that that first sense of blind panic had swept over her?

She had been reciting poetry – that was how it had begun.

From you have I been absent in the Spring
.

That was the line – and it had made her think of Rodney and she had said, ‘But it's November now …'

Just as Rodney had said that evening, ‘But it's October …'

The evening of the day that he had sat on Asheldown with Leslie Sherston – the two of them sitting there in silence – with four feet of space between them. And she had thought, hadn't she, that it wasn't very friendly?

But she knew now – and of course she must really have known then – why they sat so far apart.

It was because, wasn't it, they didn't dare to be nearer …

Rodney – and Leslie Sherston …

Not Myrna Randolph – never Myrna Randolph. She had deliberately encouraged the Myrna Randolph myth in her own mind because she knew there was nothing in it. She had put up Myrna Randolph as a smoke screen so as to hide what was really there.

And partly – be honest now, Joan – partly because it was easier for her to accept Myrna Randolph than Leslie Sherston.

It would hurt her pride less to admit that Rodney had been attracted by Myrna Randolph who was beautiful and the kind of siren who could be supposed to attract any man not gifted with superhuman powers of resistance.

But Leslie Sherston – Leslie who was not even beautiful – who was not young – who was not even well turned out. Leslie with her tired face and her funny one-sided smile. To admit that Rodney could love Leslie – could love her with such passion that he dared not trust himself nearer than four feet – that was what she hated to acknowledge.

That desperate longing, that aching unsatisfied desire – that force of passion that she herself had never known …

It had been there between them that day on Asheldown – and she had felt it – it was because she had felt it that she had hurried away so quickly and so shamefacedly, not admitting to herself for a moment the thing that she really knew …

Rodney and Leslie – sitting there silent – not even looking at each other – because they dared not.

Leslie, loving Rodney so desperately, that she wanted to be laid when dead in the town where he lived …

Rodney looking down at the marble slab and saying, ‘It seems damned silly to think of Leslie Sherston under a cold slab of marble like that.' And the rhododendron bud falling, a scarlet splash.